Huge Cyber Attack Takes Down Social Media and Entertainment Sites

Huge Cyber Attack Takes Down Social Media and Entertainment Sites

Angel Cruz, Senior Reporter

If you had trouble last Friday, the 21st, going on to some of your favorite websites, it’s not just you. A dedicated denial of service attack has shut down many of the internet’s most popular sites.

Some of the websites affected include Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, and Reddit. Services such as Sony’s PlayStation Network were also under attack.

Internet infrastructure company DynDNS reports on its company Twitter account, still currently dealing with the attacks, and updates can be seen on its status page. However, Dyn’s page was also down.

CNN reports the attacks began the morning of Friday and mainly affected the east coast of the United States. No responsibility has been claimed for the attacks as of this writing, but an official told CNN the US government is “looking at all possible scenarios including possible cyber activity.”

Currently, PlayStation’s status page shows what’s essentially a complete stoppage of services in the US.  Netflix also reports some members are experiencing difficulty streaming on “some devices”. The day also marked the release of EA’s newest Battlefield game, Battlefield 1. Unfortunately EA’s servers were down due to the attack.

This isn’t the first cyber-attack of 2016 that targeted entertainment and social media sites. Will this be the last?